The Dirty Work of Forgiveness

Ah, forgiveness.  There is nothing sweeter to receive when we need it and nothing harder to give when someone else does.
In the prayer that Jesus taught the disciples, it is assumed the we forgive those who owe us, "forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us", yet so often we neglect or skim over this inconvenient part.
You may even be reading this and think, "Of course I skim over it, I'm on good terms with pretty much everybody.  I don't hold any deep-seated resentment towards anyone, but I really should share this article with ______ ."  But before you check out, consider for a moment that this may apply to all of us.  With our (specifically my) habit of stuffing our feelings, this forgiveness that God asks us to do sometimes requires that we do a little dumpster diving into our own hearts  to see what's been compacted and shoved down to the bottom.

Contrary to our "follow your heart" culture, the Bible doesn't actually teach that our human hearts are naturally beautiful things on their own, that should be listened to and followed;  It teaches us something that tracks far more truly with our daily experience, that our hearts and deceitful and wicked beyond reckoning.  So to plumb the depths of it is not for the faint and cowardly.  You will find hideous monsters there that make Shelob look like a household pet.  Unforgiveness multiplied by time and producing the offspring of anger and resentment.  Lust left alone in the dark, untouched by the disinfecting light of Christ multiplies like parasitic mushrooms into shame, selfishness and isolation.

It is only when we see our hearts as they are, full of utter depravity and worship of self that we begin to scratch the surface of what's been forgiven us by Christ.  Only then, when we realize what He fully and completely paid for on the cross and continues to clean up in us each day that we have the abundant thankfulness required to forgive our fellow sinners when their sin-sick hearts bump into and injure our sin-sick hearts.  It is only out of our own overwhelming realization of Christ's love for us that this same love is able to overflow onto those around us.

Earlier, I called forgiveness inconvenient, but it's far more than inconvenient, its downright painful, hard and completely impossible in our own strength.  But it's worth it.  It's worth the hard work and tears as we take our Savior's hand and say, "Not my will but Yours; In my weakness, You are strong, show me how to love like You do."